I have not written anything substantial for several weeks, as is likely clear from the lack of these posts. This is entirely due to my health. I spent two weeks in the hospital at the end of last month and the beginning of this month, and the recovery has not been as smooth as I would have liked. I was apparently much sicker than I initially thought (though the two weeks stay in the hospital might have been a clue. A keen eye for detail; that’s what makes a writer.), and the various medicines, including a 24/7 does of strong antibiotics through an uncomfortable pick line, is making me feel less than good. Oh, and the insomnia has returned. It seems every time I go to the hospital, I suffer a bout of insomnia a week or so after I get out (thankfully, I have Western Conference hockey to keep my company. Connor McDavid? Still good, in case you were wondering.). My destiny, apparently, is to be some intern’s thesis.
Obviously, my physical state has left me with not much more energy than I need to deal with family and work. Creative activities have largely been pushed to the wayside. I have not entirely abandoned writing. Time in the hospital (and possible the influence of the rather good pain medicines they gave me) resulted in a handful of new ideas for books/plays. I even managed, in a rare night when I was feeling almost good, to participate in a table read for someone in my writing group. Things can always be worse.
And I want to stress that I am not complaining. I am, in all seriousness, at least a little bit fortunate to be alive given the medical problems I had. And I am extra fortunate, given that I live in the United States, to be able to afford very good health care. These last several months, between the cancer and this new issue, are going to be expensive but likely won’t bankrupt me. And with one exception, I have yet to have to fight my insurance company to get them to do what my doctors wanted to do. It could be much, much worse.
I miss the writing, especially since it would be a nice distraction from the end of this election. But it does highlight how hard it is to be creative in the United States. So much can throw you off. A health scare, or serious of them like I have had in the last four months, can obviously derail even the strongest intentions. But even beyond that, the lack of a social safety net can wear on you. As good as my insurance is, it still requires me to spend some hours each week making sure everything is properly approved and billed. And that doesn’t even get into what would happen were I to lose my job and thus my rather good health insurance. Stress is not, romantic stories about struggling artists aside, really conductive to the practice of art.
All of the above is what irritates me about the imitative AI defenders who claim that they are democratizing art. Taking from people who have struggled to create something and put it in front of the world with the intention of driving those selfsame people from the market is bad enough. But pretending that removing human decisions, intelligence, and decision making from art is somehow democratizing it is even worse. If you really cared about democratizing art, you would push for universal basic income, generous unemployment benefits, shorter work weeks, and universal health care. That way, actual humans would be able to dedicate the time to creative pursuits, with much less stress when life throws them a curveball. Or two. Or three.
Weekly Word Count
You just skipped that wall of text to down here, didn’t you?
No words written this week, obviously. And I am rather uncertain about what to work on next. I could pick up the Leverage meets Person of Interest novel again. Or I could work on one of the new ideas. But a part of me, given my age, wonders if novel writing is a viable route to getting published. Assuming I ever write something worth reading, will publishing houses want to take on an over-fifty given that I will have, statistically speaking, fewer novels in me compared to a younger writer?
I could do short stories. There are more markets, even if many of them do not pay “professional” rates, and the likelihood of getting published feels higher given my circumstances. Unfortunately, I am the world’s worst short story writer. I simply lack the ability to make a short story work as a story, with a reasonable beginning, middle, and end. I could learn, but how long would that take? And scripts are fun, but I have no realistic chance of ever getting anything made at this point in my life.
So, yeah, not entirely sure what the right thing to do is. Hopefully, as I start to feel more and more like myself, I can figure this out.
Have a great weekend, everyone.